There are times when one encounters a work of art so amazingly beautiful, it's spooky. I think for instance of a handful of songs by Over the Rhine, the guitar solo in u2's "Love is Blindness", a painting or two by Edward Hopper, and several by Caravaggio. These are works that are so beautiful it is spooky. I have recently experienced the inverse of this phenomena. While in Los Angeles I purchased an album by Wovenhand, a side project of David Eugene Edwards, the lead singer of a moderately known gothic-folk act called 16 Horsepower. (That's right, I said "gothic-folk"). Wovenhand's 2004 release entitled "Consider the Birds" is so spooky, it's downright beautiful. I venture to guess you have not encountered a work of staggering spiritual profundity like "Consider the Birds" in a long time. Edwards, like his label mate Sufjan Stevens, is a believer making excellent and creative music for all discerning listeners, not for Christian rock listeners. And yet the struggle of faith breaks through the music with startling clarity.
Here are some clips from recent reviews:
so utterly soulful and important. It's everything music should be. You don't need to agree with Edwards' spiritual bent, or even understand what he's on about. This music is passionate, pure and heartfelt and disturbingly personal. Thus it's more important than 90 percent of the music that gets made these days. - From KQED.com
he sings the way Jonathan Edwards preached in his famous sermons of the 1730s – voice low, rarely making eye contact, but with the furious conviction that none of us have a moment to waste.- Dusted Magazine
In the swampy gypsy bayou of "To Make A Ring" Edwards beseeches nonbelievers to realize that "judgment is not avoided by your unbelief/ Your lack of fear/ Nor by your prayers to any little idol here...The lord will not be mocked/ Not by you or me." Gathering a gale force, the track ends with a hermetic sing-a-long around a burning maypole: "We will weave our voice, we will weave our voice together and sing forever round the throne." So, if like me you don't believe in God, then why listen? Well, because unlike empty teen angst or bitchy navel gazing, Edwards has a certified message and even with the spikes and thorns and judgments his work emerges from a compelling, otherworldly mindset.
As our country turns further towards the conservative right, it makes sense to some to be suspicious of religiosity but from my atheistic vantage, Consider the Birds is pleasingly scabrous and utterly apocalyptic. Instead of peppering his work with brief/sappy/peachy references, Edwards unleashes a torrent. Accordingly, religion aside, Consider the Birds should please any and all fans of bleak testimonials and Valley-of-Darkness soundscapes. If you really do fear Godly cooties, block out Edwards lyrics (pretend he's speaking in undecipherable tongues or talking to his girlfriend) and instead take a walk along brittle pine needles with these dark melodies, virtuosic screeches, and that humid overbearingness of his stately vocalizations. - Pitchforkmedia.com
“I’m just singing from first-hand experience of how wretched people are. And I don’t need to go any further than myself,†says Edwards of his body of work, formed first as the lead vocalist and main songwriter behind Appalachian goth-folk outfit 16 Horsepower and now the center of his solo project, the more experimental Woven Hand. “I don’t have to point my finger at anybody else, because there is no need.†In so doing, Edwards, like Cash, creates a world rendered in stark black and white, peopled with characters that murder and steal and frantically try to stay one step ahead of the judgment they know is trailing them. As with Cash, Edwards uses his personal frailties and deep Christian faith to make unsettling comments on the human condition that are designed for a purpose startlingly out of step with the majority of contemporary entertainment: Edwards aims to make his listener uncomfortable. - from an interview in Paste magazine
22.2.05
No Spectators Hurt in Hammer Appearance
As it turns out, Hammer did not rap, nor did he wear his magical genie pants when I was present for a live taping of his appearance on the TBN televangelist program entitled Praise the Lord! last week in the Orange County suburbs of Los Angeles. The former hip hop phenom was polite, passionate, and actually quite reasonable in his interview, as he spoke of his childhood in Oakland, California and his meteoric rise to super stardom in the early 1990's. There was no mention of his career's equally spectacular grind-to-a-screeching-halt-like plummet back to earth in the later half of the 1990's.
Back Home in Ohio
Well, my study leave is now over and I'm back in Columbus. My time away was refreshing, but it's good to be back. I didn't get quite as much read as I wanted to, but I did make good progress. I read 1900 pages from seven different books (not counting the Bible). The books really covered a range of topics and themes. I intend to give a brief synopsis of each book read on the blog very soon. Maybe you'll find it helpful. Some of the ideas I discovered will be working their way into grace central's ministry in the future. Another very helpful aspect of my trip was in attending a new PCA church in Newport, CA. It was planted about four years ago and is quite similar in many ways to what grace central is doing in Columbus. I learned a lot from just observing and talking to the leadership at that church. Anyway, I'm excited to get back at it here in Columbus and see how God is going to work among us this year.
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